War on Terror - Pathways to Peace

If the dead could speak...

Robert McNamara, one of the "best and the brightest" technocrats behind the escalation of the Vietnam War, eventually came to regret his actions. But his public contrition, which included a book and a series of interviews for the documentary "The Fog of War," were greeted with derision.

"Mr. McNamara must not escape the lasting moral condemnation of his countrymen," editorialized The New York Times in 1995. "Surely he must in every quiet and prosperous moment hear the ceaseless whispers of those poor boys in the infantry, dying in the tall grass, platoon by platoon, for no purpose. What he took from them cannot be repaid by prime-time apology and stale tears, three decades late."

McNamara's change of heart came 58,000 American and 2,000,000 Vietnamese lives too late. If the dead could speak, surely they would ask: why couldn't you see then what you understand so clearly now? Why didn't you listen to the millions of experts, journalists and ordinary Americans who knew that death and defeat would be the only outcome?

Though Errol Morris' film served as ipso facto indictment, its title was yet a kind of justification. There is no "fog of war." There is only hubris, stubbornness, and the psychological compartmentalization that allows a man to sign papers that will lead others to die before going home to play with his children.

McNamara is dead. Barack Obama is his successor.

Some call McNamara's life tragic. Tragedy-inducing is closer to the truth. Yes, he suffered guilt in his later years. "He wore the expression of a haunted man," wrote the author of his Times obit. "He could be seen in the streets of Washington--stooped, his shirttail flapping in the wind--walking to and from his office a few blocks from the White House, wearing frayed running shoes and a thousand-yard stare." But the men and women and boys and girls blown up by bombs and mines and impaled by bullets and maimed in countless ways deserve more vengeance than a pair of ratty Nikes. Neither McNamara nor LBJ nor the millions of Americans who were for the war merit understanding, much less sympathy.

Now Obama is following the same doomed journey.

Text taken from here.

Torture 101

The Convention Against Torture (CAT) is the most important international human rights treaty that deals exclusively with torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. The treaty went into effect on June 26, 1987, and was ratified by the U.S. in 1994. Countries that have signed the treaty are obligated to prohibit and prevent torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in all circumstances. The treaty also compels governments who ratified it to investigate all allegations of torture, to bring to justice the perpetrators, and to provide a remedy to victims of torture.

In this new video, Jamil Dakwar, Director of the ACLU’s Human Rights Program, explains more about international legal standards — including CAT — that criminalize acts of torture, as well as the United States’ obligations to seek accountability for torture.

Water Boarding of Abu Zubaydah and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed

According to new transcripts from of a 2007 Combatant Status Review Tribunal held at Guantanamo Bay, detainee Abu Zubaydah said that his CIA captors told him after he was subjected to torture that “they had mistakenly thought he was the No. 3 man in the organization’s hierarchy and a partner of Osama bin Laden.” “They told me, ‘Sorry, we discover that you are not Number 3, not a partner, not even a fighter,’” Zubaydah said. Zubaydah, who was subjected to waterboarding 83 times in one month, also said that he nearly died in prison:

Abu Zubaida, a nom de guerre for Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, told the 2007 panel of military officers at the detention facility in Cuba that “doctors told me that I nearly died four times” and that he endured “months of suffering and torture” on the false premise that he was an al-Qaeda leader.

Despite President Bush’s rhetoric, Zubaydah’s torture “foiled no plots,” a point that one of his interrogators confirmed during a congressional hearing last May. The portion of the 2007 Combatant Review Status hearing transcript in which Majid Khan — an alleged associate of Khalid Sheik Mohammad — discussed his treatment at CIA black sites was “blacked out for eight consecutive pages.”

The Bush administration has also long justified its use of torture by claiming that it obtained valuable information from torturing 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Late last year, former Vice President Dick Cheney said, “Did it produce the desire results? I think it did.” He explained:

I think, for example, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was the number three man in al Qaeda, the man who planned the attacks of 9/11, provided us with a wealth of information.

But according to documents released by the Obama administration in response to a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, Cheney was lying. Mohammed told U.S. military officials that he gave false information to the CIA after withstanding torture:

“I make up stories,” Mohammed said, describing in broken English an interrogation probably administered by the CIA that concerned the location of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

“Where is he? I don’t know. Then he torture me,” Mohammed said. “Then I said, ‘Yes, he is in this area.’”

The torture of Mohammed, who we know was waterboarded 183 times in one month, “underscores the unreliability of statements obtained by torture.”

In an interview with Fox News’ Brit Hume earlier this year, President Bush admitted that he personally authorized the torture of Mohammed. He said he personally asked “what tools” were available to use on him, and sought legal approval for waterboarding him:

BUSH: One such person who gave us information was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. … And I’m in the Oval Office and I am told that we have captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the professionals believe he has information necessary to secure the country. So I ask what tools are available for us to find information from him and they gave me a list of tools, and I said are these tools deemed to be legal? And so we got legal opinions before any decision was made.

Watch it:

The Darfur Deception

by Muhammad Idrees Ahmad / June 10th, 2009

Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror by Mahmood Mamdani, Verso, 2009.

"Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror" by Mahmood Mamdani

In Errol Morris’s 2004 film The Fog of War, former US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara recalls General Curtis LeMay, the architect of the fire-bombings of Japan during WWII, saying that “if we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.” LeMay was merely articulating an unacknowledged truism of international relations: power bestows, among other things, the right to label. So it is that mass slaughter perpetrated by the big powers, from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, is normalized through labels such as “counterinsurgency,” “pacification” and “war on terror,” while similar acts carried out by states out of favor result in the severest of charges. It is this politics of naming that is the subject of Mahmood Mamdani’s explosive new book, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror.

Read more here.

Bush's Shocking Biblical Prophecy Emerges: God Wants to "Erase" Mid-East Enemies "Before a New Age Begins"

In 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France's President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated.

In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped. The Book of Revelation took up the Old Testament prophesy:

"And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them."

Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling Chirac:

"This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins".

The story of the conversation emerged only because the Elyse Palace, baffled by Bush's words, sought advice from Thomas Romer, a professor of theology at the University of Lausanne. Four years later, Romer gave an account in the September 2007 issue of the university's review, Allez savoir. The article apparently went unnoticed, although it was referred to in a French newspaper.

The story has now been confirmed by Chirac himself in a new book, published in France in March, by journalist Jean Claude Maurice.Chirac is said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush's invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and "wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs".

In the same year he spoke to Chirac, Bush had reportedly said to the Palestinian foreign minister that he was on "a mission from God" in launching the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and was receiving commands from the Lord.

There can be little doubt now that President Bush's reason for launching the war in Iraq was, for him, fundamentally religious. He was driven by his belief that the attack on Saddam's Iraq was the fulfilment of a Biblical prophesy in which he had been chosen to serve as the instrument of the Lord.

Many thousands of Americans and Iraqis have died in the campaign to defeat Gog and Magog. That the US President saw himself as the vehicle of God whose duty was to prevent the Apocalypse can only inflame suspicions across the Middle East that the United States is on a crusade against Islam.

Text taken from here.

How Bush Abused Power?

The Bush Six to Be Indicted

Spanish prosecutors will seek criminal charges against Alberto Gonzales and five high-ranking Bush administration officials for sanctioning torture at Guantanamo. By Scott Horton.

Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. attorney general Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo, several reliable sources close to the investigation have told The Daily Beast. Their decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday before the Spanish central criminal court, the Audencia Nacional, in Madrid. But the decision is likely to raise concerns with the human rights community on other points: they will seek to have the case referred to a different judge.

Both Washington and Madrid appear determined not to allow the pending criminal investigation to get in the way of improved relations.

The six defendants—in addition to Gonzales, Federal Appeals Court Judge and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, University of California law professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department general counsel and current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff David Addington and former Under-Secretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith—are accused of having given the green light to the torture and mistreatment of prisoners held in U.S. detention in “the war on terror.” The case arises in the context of a pending proceeding before the court involving terrorism charges against five Spaniards formerly held at Guantánamo. A group of human rights lawyers originally filed a criminal complaint asking the court to look at the possibility of charges against the six American lawyers. Baltasar Garzón Real, the investigating judge, accepted the complaint and referred it to Spanish prosecutors for a view as to whether they would accept the case and press it forward. “The evidence provided was more than sufficient to justify a more comprehensive investigation,” one of the lawyers associated with the prosecution stated.

Read further the article from here.

Canada breaking the law by hosting war crimes suspect George W. Bush

Protesters threw shoes at a billboard image of George W. Bush outside the Telus Convention Centre, where the former U.S. president was speaking. (Andree Lau/CBC)

The Canadian government has knowingly allowed the violation of both Canadian domestic law and international human-rights law by failing to stop former U.S. president George W. Bush from crossing the border for a paid speaking engagement with a private Calgary audience.

Many competent international authorities have concluded that the available evidence establishes that Bush and the Bush administration committed torture and other war crimes and crimes against humanity. Therefore Canada now has a duty to condemn, investigate, prosecute and punish those crimes.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Attorney General Rob Nicholson and other responsible ministers were notified on March 11 of specific evidence clearly demonstrating there are reasonable grounds to believe Mr. Bush has been complicit in torture and other war crimes.

Under Canada's immigration laws, if there are reasonable grounds to believe a person is complicit in these crimes, entry to Canada must be denied.

The test is not whether a person has been convicted, but whether there are reasonable grounds to think they have been involved in such crimes.

Even though Canadian officials were referred to the overwhelming evidence of Bush's involvement in torture government officials apparently took no action to bar Bush or commence an investigation.

"In a letter to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police war crimes section and copied to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and other federal ministers and opposition MPs, the Lawyers Against the War group claims that Bush is 'inadmissible to Canada . . . because of overwhelming evidence that he has committed, outside Canada, torture and other offences' as detailed in Canada's War Crimes Act," reported Canada.com.

The letter asks the mounted police to "begin an investigation of George W. Bush for aiding, abetting and counseling torture between November 13, 2001 and November 2008 at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Bagram prison in Afghanistan and other places."

"The letter also alleges that Bush has engaged in 'systematic or gross human rights violations, or a war crime or a crime against humanity' under subsections 6(3) to 6(5) of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act," reported Straight.com.

Watch the angry crowd.

John Dean: "Potentially A War Crime; Potentially Murder"

“We have lived in a golden age of impunity, where a person stands a much better chance of being tried for taking a single life than for killing ten thousand or a million.”

Watch the movie.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Also read A History of War Crimes.

Obama Expands War

The Obama Administration has engineered a triple setback for the U.S. peace movement and the millions of Americans who opposed the Bush Administration’s unjust, illegal, immoral wars.

In the last two weeks of February, President Barack Obama — upon whom so many peace supporters had counted to change Washington’s commitment to wars and militarism — delivered these three blows to his antiwar constituency:

1. By ordering 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan Feb. 17, President Obama is continuing and expanding George W. Bush’s war. It’s Obama’s war now, and it’s getting much bigger.
2. By declaring Feb. 27 that up to 50,000 U.S. soldiers would remain in Iraq after “combat brigades” departed, President Obama is continuing the war in a country that remains a tragic victim of the Bush Administration’s aggression and which has taken the lives of over a million Iraqi civilians and has made refugees of 4.5 million people.
3. By announcing Feb. 26 that his projected 2010 Pentagon budget was to be even higher than budgets sought by the Bush Administration, President Obama was signaling that his commitment to the U.S. bloated war machine — even at a time of serious economic recession — was not to be questioned.

Read further the article here.

Also With Iraq plan, Obama embraces US militarism.

U.S. War in Afghanistan Haunted by Bush war Crimes

by Prof. Michael Haas

While additional American troops are being deployed to Afghanistan, George W. Bush’s misdeeds continue to handicap combat effectiveness there. Past disrespect to the country must be reversed by an immediate apology to the Afghan people and new orders to field commanders to follow the Geneva Conventions on the battlefield.

The U.S. war in Afghanistan began in 2001 as a war of aggression similar to the attack on Iraq. Prior to the start of that war on Oct. 7, 2001, the Taliban government in Kabul offered to hand over Osama Bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, if the U.S. provided proof he was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Bush deemed Kabul’s response insufficient and he attacked without adequately seeking an alternative or peaceful way to resolve differences…and the UN was not given a proper role. This attack violated Article 2 of the UN Charter that states “All members shall refrain…from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity…of any state…”

Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq attacked the United States, so neither war was based on self-defense. Preemptive war is not an accepted form of self-defense under international law.

The list of U.S. war crimes committed in Afghanistan alone documented in my book include the following:

• The U.S. bombed the children’s hospital in Kabul and a hospital in Herat, resulting in 100 deaths. This violated the Red Cross Convention of 1864 that established even military hospitals as “neutral” and that must be “respected by belligerents.”
• Clearly marked Red Cross warehouses were bombed on three occasions in the Afghan War during October 2001, a violation of the Geneva Convention of 1929 that protects “the personnel of Voluntary Aid Societies.”
• During its 2001 offensive in Afghanistan, at least 1,000 civilians were killed by U.S. carpet bombing. This violates Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions prohibiting “indiscriminate attacks” against civilians.
• While the Hague Convention of 1899 requires that prisoners be “humanely treated,” this was often not the case in Afghanistan where the conditions in the prisons were so shocking that Canadian forces stopped sending prisoners to the American-run prisons at the end of 2005, preferring to send them to facilities run by the Afghan government.
• Although the Geneva Convention of 1949 forbids “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds,” captives were murdered in Afghanistan’s prisons. Some were chained naked to the ceiling, cell doors, and the floor. One man, Ait Idr, had his face forced into a toilet that was repeatedly flushed. Another, Mohammed Ahmed Said Haidel, was hit with his arms tied behind his back until his head began to bleed. Another, Ahmed Darabi, was hung by his arms and repeatedly beaten, though he survived---unlike (a) taxicab driver (named) Dilawar, who died from the same treatment.
• Prisoners of war “shall be lodged in buildings or in barracks,” says the POW Convention of 1929 but many cells at American-run prisons in Afghanistan lack windows and adequate ventilation. Some prisons lacked heat during cold weather so that prisoners died of exposure. What’s more, some prisoners have been held in solitary confinement for years.
• Where the Geneva Convention decrees sick or wounded prisoners “shall not be transferred as long as their recovery may be endangered by the journey,” some prisoners transferred in Afghanistan were thrown to the ground from helicopters and badly injured. Still others were kicked or beaten en route and others died while stuffed into sealed cargo containers. Not surprisingly, the deaths of some Afghan prisoners have never been recorded, another war crimes violation.

Aggressive war was first declared to be illegal when the U.S. and France coauthored and later ratified the multilateral Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, thus incorporating that document into what the U.S. Constitution calls ”the law of the land.” Furthermore, the U.S. is a signatory to both the United Nations Charter and the Nuremberg Charter of 1945, and the Tokyo Charter of 1946.

The Nuremberg Charter, for example, defines crimes against peace as “planning, preparation, initiation or the waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties…,” a definition that fits U.S. actions in Afghanistan during 2001.

It is not only the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq whose rights have been trampled, for today the globe is being transformed into an unchecked superpower playpen where might appears to make right. Hundreds of years of human rights progress are in serious jeopardy as long as governmental war criminals live blissfully in the knowledge that they will never be accountable for their crimes.

The more the public observes reference in the news to possible war crimes violations, the more decision makers will be accountable. Otherwise, the impunity of high Bush administration officials for the immense violations documented….threatens to turn back the clock on human progress by shredding the Magna Carta, the American Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Hague and Geneva Conventions, and similar agreements that have advanced humanity from barbarism toward civilized behavior.

Bush has accomplished a transformed United States where leaders have abandoned democratic principles and loyal citizens are profoundly ashamed of how the ideals of the country they love so much have been abandoned. Something must be done or Americans will believe that whatever Bush has done was right.

Bringing George W. Bush and his administration to justice for war crimes is the most compelling way in which to dispel the fiction that what has been done was necessary and proper. Otherwise, the specter of war crimes will continue to haunt the world, and civilization itself will unravel helplessly.

Article taken from here.

Compare them.

Is what Israel is doing in Gaza Genocide?

What Israel has been doing in Gaza and Palestine comes very close to genocide according to the provisions of the Genocide Convention (1948), reiterated in the Rome Charter of the International Criminal Court (2002), which includes: (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

Article 2 of the genocide Convention stipulates that any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

An important aspect of genocide is that one has to talk about intent. So we must examine if a given government entity has an intent to completely eradicate a population. The litmus test is intent. If one considers the past six decades of racist statements and declarations coming from Israeli leaders, Zionist ideologues, members of the Knesset, the Grand Rabbi of Israel and the anti-Arab and Islamophobic brochures distributed to Israeli soldiers attacking Gaza by Religious leaders, and some IDF Commanders, the intent becomes fairly clear.

I personally agree with Professors Richard Falk, Francis Boyle, Noam Chomski, James Petras, and a growing number of others who have seriously examined the Question of Palestine and have concluded that a case is to be made for bringing Israel to account under the 1948 Genocide Convention.

The text taken from an interview of International Lawyers Without Borders with Dr Franklin Lamb with the title Israel’s Attack on Gaza: Legitimate Self Defense or War Crime?

Anne Miller: Stimulate Peace, Not War

The Iraq war and subsequent occupation, a "pet project" of the Bush administration and consistently financed by most members of Congress, will very likely cost the American taxpayer more than $3 trillion dollars by 2010, when interest on the debt and much-needed veterans benefits are factored in to the costs of the war. Even former President Bush, as reported in the Wall Street Journal in December 2008, acknowledges that increased military spending during his tenure in the White House has contributed to the federal budget crisis.

And just how much has the increase been? In the past eight years, U.S. military spending has nearly doubled; when nuclear weapons spending and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are factored in, the U.S. taxpayer will be footing a Pentagon bill of an estimated $711 billion in 2009 -- approximately $2,300 for every person living in the United States. $711 billion is roughly equivalent to what the rest of the world spends combined on military spending. There is no indication that President Obama plans to cut the military budget any time soon; in fact, he may be requesting some increase.

So what about wasteful Pentagon spending? The moral implications of spending half of every discretionary U.S. tax dollar on "defense" aside, it would seem prudent for the fiscally minded to scour the Pentagon budget to clean up and dispose of wasteful and unnecessary programs. Rep. Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, has spoken out repeatedly about the possibility of shearing 25 percent from the military budget, and has outlined some programs cuts to get there. Where is the support of fiscal conservatives for this proposal?

For those who believe our defense budget makes us safer: An ever-increasing military budget does little but provide security to Congressional incumbents and military contractors. According to the Center for American Progress and its recently published Unified Security Budget, 87 percent of security resources in the 2009 federal budget are being spent on the military. Only 8 percent are dedicated to homeland security, and a paltry 5 percent to non-military engagement. As the old saying goes, "When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

National security cannot and should not be defined in terms of our capacity to wage war abroad. National security is when the most vulnerable among us have access to adequate education, health care and housing; when we address the very real and growing threat of climate change; and when those Americans who want to work can support their families with a living wage. It will be achieved when we invest abroad in programs that address the root causes of terrorism including poverty, access to food and clean water, and education. It will be achieved when we make nuclear nonproliferation a priority, and lead the world in helping secure loose nukes and fissile materials, and begin serious negotiation of the abolition of nuclear weapons.

The stimulus' $787 billion is a great deal of money. However skeptical I am about the prospects of the package succeeding in any measurable way, I'd rather have my tax dollars go to "pet projects" that may staunch the bloodletting of American jobs than wasteful Pentagon programs whose primary purpose is to find effective and creative ways to kill human beings.

Shoe-icide

Cheney Admits Authorizing Torture

In a new interview with ABC News, Vice President Cheney claimed that the case for war had nothing to do with whether Saddam Hussein had WMD; America would have invaded anyway. Today on MSNBC’s Hardball, right-wing commentator Frank Gaffney defended Cheney’s remarks, saying that the “real reason” the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq was because Saddam was a “mortal threat” to the United States.

Britain Leaves Iraq in Shame. The US Won't Go So Quietly

by Seumas Milne
Global Research, December 12, 2008
The Guardian

Obama was elected on the back of revulsion at Bush's war, but greater pressure will be needed to force a full withdrawal.

If British troops are indeed withdrawn from Iraq by next June, it will signal the end of the most shameful and disastrous episode in modern British history. Branded only last month by Lord Bingham, until recently Britain's most senior law lord, as a "serious violation of international law", the aggression against Iraq has not only devastated an entire country and left hundreds of thousands dead - it has also been a political and military humiliation for the invading powers.

In the case of Britain, which marched into a sovereign state at the bidding of an extreme and reckless US administration, the war has been a national disgrace which has damaged the country's international standing. Britain's armed forces will withdraw from Iraq with dishonour. Not only were they driven from Basra city last summer under cover of darkness by determined resistance, just as British colonial troops were forced out of Aden 40 years ago - and Iraq and Afghanistan, among other places, before that. But they leave behind them an accumulation of evidence of prisoner beatings, torture and killings, for which only one low-ranking soldier, Corporal Payne, has so far been singled out for punishment.

It's necessary to spell out this brutal reality as a corrective to the official tendency to minimise or normalise the horror of what has evidently been a criminal enterprise - enthusiastically supported by David Cameron and William Hague, it should be remembered, as well as Tony Blair and his government - and a reminder of the dangers of escalating the war that can't be won in Afghanistan. It was probably just as well that the timetable for British withdrawal from Iraq was given in a background military briefing, after Gordon Brown's earlier schedule for troop reductions was vetoed by George Bush.

But in any case, in the wake of Barack Obama's election on a partial withdrawal ticket, the latest plans look a good deal more credible. They are also welcome, of course, even if several hundred troops are to stay behind to train Iraqis. It would be far better both for Britain and Iraq if there were a clean break and a full withdrawal of all British forces in preparation for a comprehensive public inquiry into the Iraq catastrophe. Instead, and in a pointer to the shape of things to come, British troops at Basra airport are being replaced by US forces.

Meanwhile, the real meaning of last month's security agreement between the US and Iraqi governments is becoming clearer, as Obama's administration-in-waiting briefs the press and officials highlight the small print. This "status of forces agreement", which replaces the UN's shotgun mandate for the occupation forces at the end of this month, had been hailed by some as an unequivocal deal to end the occupation within three years.

There's no doubt that Iraq's Green Zone government, under heavy pressure from its own people and neighbours such as Iran, extracted significant concessions from US negotiators to the blanket occupation licence in the original text. The final agreement does indeed stipulate that US forces will withdraw by the end of 2011, that combat troops will leave urban areas by July next year, contractors and off-duty US soldiers will be subject to Iraqi law and that Iraqi territory cannot be used to attack other countries.

The fact that the US was forced to make such commitments reflects the intensity of both Iraqi and American public opposition to the occupation, the continuing Iraqi resistance war of attrition against US forces, and Obama's tumultuous election on a commitment to pull out all combat troops in 16 months. Even so, the deal was denounced as treason - for legitimising foreign occupation and bases - by the supporters of the popular Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, resistance groups and the influential Association of Muslim Scholars.

And since his November triumph, Obama has gone out of his way to emphasise his commitment to maintaining a "residual force" for fighting "terrorism", training and protection of US civilians - which his security adviser Richard Danzig estimated could amount to between 30,000 and 55,000 troops.

Briefings by Pentagon officials have also made clear this residual force could remain long after 2011. It turns out that the new security agreement can be ditched by either side, while the Iraqi government is fully entitled to invite US troops to remain, as explained in the accompanying "strategic framework agreement", so long as its bases or presence are not defined as "permanent". And given that the current Iraqi government would be unlikely to survive a week without US protection, such a request is a fair bet. Combat troops can also be "re-missioned" as "support units", it transpires, and even the last-minute concession of a referendum on the agreement next year will not, the Iraqi government now says, be binding.

None of this means there won't be a substantial withdrawal of troops from Iraq after Obama takes over the White House next month. But how far that withdrawal goes will depend on the kind of pressure he faces both at home and in Iraq. The US establishment clearly remains committed to a long-term stewardship of Iraq. The Iraqi government is at this moment negotiating secret 20-year contracts with US and British oil majors to manage 90% of the country's oil production. The struggle to end US occupation and control of the country is far from won.

The same goes for the wider shadow of the war on terror, of which Iraq has been the grisly centrepiece. Its legacy has been strategic overreach and failure for the US: from the rise of Iran as a regional power, the deepening imbroglio of the Afghan war, the advance of Hamas and Hizbullah and threat of implosion in Pakistan - quite apart from the advance of the nationalist left in Latin America and the growing challenge from Russia and China. But at its heart has been the demonstration of American weakness in Iraq, the three trillion-dollar war that helped drive the US economy into crisis.

No wonder the US elite has wanted a complete change of direction and Bush was last week reduced to mumbling his regrets about the "intelligence failure in Iraq". For Obama, the immediate foreign policy tests are clear: if he delivers on Iraq, negotiates in Afghanistan and engages with Iran, he will start to justify the global hopes that have been invested in him. If not, he will lay the ground for a new phase of conflict with the rest of the world.

“2009 – Year for détente, disarmament and non-proliferation”

Moscow 9 December 2008
Comments by Hans Blix, Chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission

Are we in a new Cold War?
It is sometimes said that nothing is as strong as an idea whose time has come. It seems clear that in 2009 time has come for the idea of global forceful measures to tackle the risk of climate change.

Is 2009 also the time for the idea of disarmament? Many will shake their heads and say that there is winter rather than warming in the global political climate. They might point to some “inconvenient truths”.

• In 2007 the world spent some 1.300 billion dollars on military expenses. Nearly half fell on the US ; 4 -5 % each on China , France and the UK , and 3 % on Russia . (Sipri Yearbook for 2008).
• The US is proceeding to deploy parts of its missile shield on the doorsteps of Russia in Poland and the Czech Republic .. Russia may react by stepping up its own missile program and installing missiles in Kaliningrad .
• US armed forces have had joint exercises with Georgian troops and after the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia US naval units that navigate in the Black Sea have delivered emergency equipment to Georgia .
• Russia has given notice of withdrawal from the post Cold War agreement about Conventional Forces in Europe .
• Russia is sending nuclear capable bombers on patrol far away from home and is engaging in joint naval maneuvers with Venezuela in the Caribbean.
• In the US the outgoing Bush administration has advanced proposals for the designing and building of a new standard nuclear weapon. In other nuclear weapons states efforts are, likewise undertaken to modernize their nuclear capacities.
• China is building a blue sea navy and has shot down a satellite of its own, demonstrating a capability for action in space.
  

What has happened to the successful political cooperation, arms control and disarmament that began at the end of the Cold War?

After the end of the Cold War consensus decisions became common in the Security Council that had often earlier been paralyzed by the veto. Important joint decisions and actions became possible. Many peace-keeping operations were agreed to and in 1991 the Council agreed to stop Iraq ’s aggression against Kuwait and authorized the Gulf War. President Bush the elder spoke about ‘a new international order’. There was general euphoria that the UN Charter prohibition of the use of force had been enforced and that, at long last, the system for collective security had worked.

• The nuclear stockpiles in the US and Russia were reduced from levels that were absurdly high and cost too much.
• In 1993 the Convention against Chemical Weapons was concluded after some 20 years of negotiation.
• In 1995 the Non-Proliferation Treaty was extended without any final date.
• In 1996 a Treaty comprehensively prohibiting all nuclear weapons tests was adopted.
  

Détente peters out. US reliance on military superiority

• However, while the Warsaw Pact disintegrated and the Russian military power crumbled, the NATO alliance survived and expanded. The US became the sole military superpower determined never to lose that position.
• The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that had been signed by the Clinton administration in 1996 was rejected by the US Senate and the moratorium on nuclear tests that has been respected by the P 5 was ignored in 1998 by India, Pakistan and -- later – by North Korea.
• The disarmament process stagnated. START II never went into effect and a planned START III Treaty between the US and Russia failed to materialize;
• The Disarmament Conference in Geneva went into coma. For over ten years it has been unable even to adopt a work programme.
  

With the entry of the Bush administration in 2001 and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in the autumn of 2001 the US moved to a greater reliance on its military supremacy and a corresponding lesser reliance on seeking solutions through the give and take of negotiations, through multilateralism, treaties and disarmament.

“War” was declared on terrorism – not simply coordinated international action by police and intelligence.

While broad international support and UN authorization underpinned the US military intervention that freed Afghanistan from the Taliban government that had hosted the Al Qaeda, many other actions were unilateral and some have seriously eroded the international détente that prevailed in the first half of the 1990s. For instance,

• The US formally withdrew from the bilateral US-Soviet the Antiballistic Missile Treaty.
• In 2002 the US almost single-handedly prevented adding verification mechanisms to the Biological Weapons Convention;
• In 2002 a new US National Security Strategy flatly declared that in the era of missiles and terrorists a right to use armed force in self-defense only in cases where ‘armed attacks’ were occurring or were ‘imminent’ would be insufficient. This was tantamount to giving public notice that the US would not feel restricted by the rules of the UN Charter. The armed attack on Iraq in 2003 was launched without authorization by the Security Council.
• The 2005 Review conference of the Non Proliferation Treaty ended in bitterness and without result. The five nuclear-weapon states parties rejected the criticism that they were not fulfilling their duty under Art. VI of the treaty to negotiate toward nuclear disarmament.
• Recent budgetary allocations in the US have demonstrated a determination to maintain global military supremacy. Although the US Congress has imposed some restraints – for instance not funding the nuclear bunker buster -- it has not until now provided a major break. We could recently watch the turmoil and convulsions before the main financial crisis program of some 700 billion dollars was accepted. At the very same time hardly a murmur was heard when with great speed and smoothness about the same amount – 700 billion dollars – was approved for the military budget.
  

2008 is still a military year
In 2005 I was invited to Stanford University to lecture on the subject “Will there be a new arms race?” My answer was a cautious no. I said that it “takes two to tango and at least two to create an arms race.” At that time I could see only the United States racing itself and – after the threat of Iraq ’s weapons of mass destruction had proved empty – I doubted that the US tax payer would be willing to continue paying huge arms bills unless new threats materialized into significant actions.

Perhaps I was unduly influenced the situation in Europe where countries were spending 1.9% of GDP on military expenses whereas the US was spending some 3.5%. In 2005 European countries no longer felt a need for military means to keep each other at bay, nor did they see Russia as a threat requiring strong territorial defense. In many European countries a main role of armed forces was seen to be participation in UN or other peace keeping operations.

Today, I must regrettably note that

• the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan together with the controversies with the DPRK and Iran still persuade US Congress – and the US taxpayers – to accept a military budget of unprecedented size; and that
• Russia, China and others are joining the military tango. Unlike the US they may be not be significantly motivated by the threats of terrorism and non-proliferation problems.. However, while they cannot aim at catching up with US strength they may want to avoid trailing even further behind;
• the chill in relations with Russia after the war in Georgia has led some in Western Europe to upgrade the importance of territorial defense.
  

Factors that may impact on future levels of military expenses
The US presidential election confirmed public support for a militarily strong US but it also showed some tiredness with military engagements, in particular with the war in Iraq . Whether the US public will support a long military engagement in Afghanistan remains to be seen. In any case it may be doubted that such an engagement will necessitate a new generation of nuclear weapons, new aircraft carriers or extensive preparation for space war. In the absence of new terrorist attacks in the US or on US assets abroad demands for a slimmed military budget might get broad public support. The need to find budgetary resources for the huge financial rescue measures may further support cuts on the military side.

Reliance on the threat or use of military force has not been successful.
It is often argued in the US that more emphasis should be placed on ‘soft power’, meaning diplomacy, economy, culture, legal system. The other side of this argument is recognition that a strong reliance on the threat or use of military strength – as we have seen in the last eight years – has not been successful but proved horribly expensive in lives and resources.

Iraq was meant to be a quick operation removing an odious dictator, eliminating weapons of mass destruction and introducing democracy and a US friendly regime that would – like Korea , Japan and Germany – be glad to host US forces for an indefinite time. It did not turn out as envisaged. The operation is now in its fifth year and the costs in lives and resources are enormous – for the US and even more for Iraq . Contrary to faulty intelligence there were no weapons of mass destruction; democracy is a hard plant to cultivate and requires more than the removal of a dictator; and the continued presence of some US troops is meeting with Iraqi reservations.

The Israeli armed action in Lebanon started as a justifiable retaliation against Hezbollah incursions into Israel and hostage taking. The US encouraged development of the action into an all out military effort to eliminate Hezbollah in Lebanon proved a failure. Eventually the UN had to be called in to guard a fragile peace.

In the case of the small and destitute DPRK it must have been realized early that the huge US military power could not be used to destroy the nuclear programs. Theoretically, the reprocessing plant and other nuclear installations in Nyong Byon could be bombed. However, the risks of North Korean retaliation practically precluded military action.. With many million inhabitants Seoul lies within artillery range from North Korea .

Several years were lost before diplomatic negotiations in the shape of the six power talks were started in Beijing and these years were used by the DPRK to produce plutonium for several more nuclear bombs. Some of the economic pressures exerted by the US and others may have had an effect. Others may simply have made the DPRK intransigent.

It will be of the greatest importance for détente in North East Asia that the talks in Beijing lead to an acceptable result. A further development of North Korean nuclear weapons could have scary domino effects in the region. The cooperation between the big powers is also in itself a useful exercise for them to adjust to each other in order to produce a common position that will be more effective than separate individual positions.

On the whole it would seem that carrots more than sticks have provided leverage. Deliveries of oil and rice to the impoverished country have been and remain important parts. Perhaps promises of diplomatic relations with the US and Japan and guarantees against any attacks provide the best leverage to bring the ostracized regime to abandon its nuclear program.

In the case of Libya it has clearly been talks and promises of an end to isolation that persuaded Mr. Khaddaffi to scrap his nuclear weapons program. He was rewarded by a lifting of sanctions and opening of economic relations and the social and diplomatic ostracism was ended by a procession of Western visitors: Mr. Blair, Mr. Chirac, Mr. Sarkozy and Ms. Rice.

In the case of Iran , there has been no lack of military threats from the US . Again and again it has been declared that ‘all options are on the table’ and several US air craft carriers have been stationed with their ready cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf . It seems that these threats have only strengthened the hardliners in Iran and rallied public opinion in national support of the government. Until now the US – and, indeed, the Security Council -- has taken the stand that direct talks with Iran can only take place when Iran has agreed to suspend its program for the enrichment of uranium. It is not surprising that Iran has proved unwilling. Who gives away the strongest card before the game?

If, contrary to Iran ’s denials, the reason for the enrichment program should be to shorten the distance to a nuclear weapons option one must examine whether the importance of the option can be eliminated. In many cases the incentive to acquire nuclear weapons comes from a perceived compelling need for security or a wish to be recognized. During the 1980s, when Saddam Hussein developed a nuclear program aiming at weapons, Iran may well have felt a need to get closer to the option. Today, none of Iran ’s neighbours would pose a nuclear threat to Iran if Iran stayed away from enrichment.. Only the US might be perceived as such a threat.

Similarly, the isolation of Iran as part of ‘the axis of evil’ is chiefly inspired and pursued by the US . Against this background it might well be that direct talks with Iran and a US offer of guarantees against armed attack and against subversive actions and offer of diplomatic relations would prove more persuasive than military threats. As long as such chips have not been put on the table it is hard to claim that the diplomatic means have been exhausted.

Are there potential conflicts that justify the enormous current armaments?
Wars between nations used most often to be about borders and land. There are certainly still some conflicts of this kind, but hardly between the major military powers. In Europe, the European Union was created to forge a co-operation so close as to rule out armed conflicts. No one can imagine a war between the US and Mexico today and armed conflicts also seem unlikely between states on the South American continent.

Wars of national liberation were numerous in the first decades after World War II, but these conflicts are largely a thing of the past. After the end of the Cold War it is also hard to imagine any further conflicts based on ideology or religion. There will be no wars of civilizations.

There may be more armed conflicts in Africa, where borders were often drawn without regard to tribal and other relevant conditions. We can also not exclude the risk of more armed conflicts in the Middle East, and of civil wars in various places. However, with the Cold War over it is hard to imagine that such conflicts in Africa or the Middle East could cause armed conflicts between major military powers. Admittedly, part of the reason would lie in the existing US military superiority. However, even with a greater balance in the military sphere it is hard to believe that they would allow themselves to be drawn into a major direct military confrontations. Even during the Cold War they did not do that.

Many will suggest that competition about oil, gas and raw materials will lead to armed conflicts. It is not difficult to see that various states seek to establish close relations with countries that have rich resources of oil and gas – Arab states and Iran in the Middle East, Libya and Algeria in North Africa , Sudan, Angola, Nigeria in black Africa, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in Central Asia. There is evidently a competition to have access to energy sources and to safeguard means and routes of transport, like pipelines and sea routes. However, is it not most likely that competition about access to oil will play out in price increases rather than in armed conflicts?

I am left with the question whether the huge military apparatus that has been retained and developed by the US and the sizeable military machines that are now being strengthened in Russia, China, India and elsewhere, are really meaningful. Some will undoubtedly find the question naïve. However, unless there are important terrorist actions or developments that make China and Russia look like threatening vital Western interests or that make the West look like threatening vital Russian or Chinese interests, the climate should be favourable for significant reductions in military budgets, for arms control and disarmament.

However, I believe decisive efforts to create a new détente are needed for such a revival. With new leadership in the US and several other big powers détente should be possible. Let me make some comments regarding measures to foster détente and then turn to measures of disarmament.

Measures for détente
I begin with the question of expansion of NATO. Today it concerns Georgia and Ukraine. However, Senator Lugar, who was the Republican Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged that the Alliance should be open also Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan and Mr. McCain proposed that it should be open to all democratic states and that a League of Democratic states should be established.

I believe these efforts are misdirected. Some of the independent states that were earlier part of the Soviet Union might well want NATO protection. They have the right to join any security arrangement that is open to them. However, before exercising a right they have, states and alliances as well as people assess what the consequences may be – whether it is wise. It is realistic to assume that the Russian government and Russian public opinion would view further NATO presences on Russia ’s doorsteps as a Western policy of encircling Russia . Stronger nationalism, more defense spending and more tension might well be the result. This seems to be well understood in several major European states that I think wisely aim at closer economic ties – but not military ties—with the states in question.

I should add that there are also things that in my view Russia as the big power could do to promote détente, in particular, to pursue the policy of the good neighbor. Here, as in so many other situations, the use of carrots may lead to better results than the waving of sticks. Making it clear that Russia has no wishes or intentions to seek the reintegration of any of its neighbors would go a long way to restore détente and counter suspicions of revanchism. It seems to me that the excellent Russian relations with Finland could be a good model.

The proposal advanced by Senator McCain for a League of Democracies may have appealed to some in the US who are particularly negative to the UN and would wish to circumvent possible vetoes by Russia or China in the Security Council and get a stamp of international legitimacy for measures that would not be approved. Their anger is somewhat misplaced. A large number of decisions are, in fact, taken by consensus in the Security Council. Russia and China have not be alone in sometimes doubting the wisdom of proposed far-reaching sanctions.

Turning to the plans to deploy parts of the US missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, I note that the Russian leaders have not claimed that the links will deprive Russia of a second strike capability. However, they undoubtedly feel that these measures on their doorsteps are provocative and suspect that a further development of the installations could have substantial security implications. Regardless of what they say it should not be difficult for US military strategists to understand such reactions.

The military gains of these measures hardly seem to stand in any proportion to the political damage they do. If, as is asserted, the measures aim only to protect against missiles from rogue states or terrorists, it would seem rational that other states – including Russia and China – be invited to join in a common defense effort. Mr. Obama seems to have generally supported the missile shield if it can be shown to work. This might be a good reason to shelve the measures. Both Russia and the US will need to move cautiously to avoid loss of face on either side. Big powers should avoid challenging each other.

For continued détente with China the new US leadership will need to act in such a way as to minimize the concern in Beijing over the nuclear cooperation agreement that has been made by the Bush administration with India and that will increase India’s capability to make nuclear weapons and is designed to draw India in a closer strategic cooperation with the US. The agreement allows India inter alia to import uranium fuel for power reactors and thereby enables the country, if it so chooses, to enrich its indigenous uranium to bomb grade level.

A verified cut-off agreement could help to undo some of the suspicions that might arise. The five nuclear weapon states parties to the NPT appear already to have stopped producing fissile material for weapons as they have more than they need. However, with the adherence of all to a verified cut off agreement, Pakistan, India and China would be able to feel confident that none of them is increasing the stocks of bombs and bomb grade material. Without such an agreement there would be no confidence but a risk of an arms race.

Arms control and disarmament
In the US presidential campaign Mr. Obama certainly sought support by reminding the voters of his opposition to the war in Iraq war and of his readiness to talk to adversaries. However, on many issues he presented a centrist position. Not surprisingly, he rejected any idea of unilateral US disarmament and spoke in favour of an orderly exit from Iraq .

When you carefully study Mr. Obama’s positions you cannot avoid the impression that although he is not a dove he is inclined to listen to adversaries, to understand them and, if possible, solve controversies by negotiation. You also get the impression that he strongly and genuinely favours arms control and disarmament.

If steps are taken in 2009 that begin to lead to détente on significant issues – notably the missile shield and further NATO expansion – the outlook for progress on arms control and disarmament will also brighten in 2009.

Several issues are burning. The START 1 agreement between the US and Russia will expire at the end of next year unless agreement is reached on a prolongation. Without a prolongation of this agreement all rules concerning mutual inspection and verification between the two states will lapse. Another instrument requiring urgent care is the comprehensive agreement on Conventional Forces in Europe . Understandably dissatisfied that it has not been brought up to date Russia has given notice of withdrawal. It needs updating and it is absurd that it has not happened earlier.

Mr. Obama is on record as fully supporting the dramatic appeal by the former US Secretaries of State, George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of Defence, William Perry and the former Senator Sam Nunn. It urges the US to take the initiative with Russia and other nuclear weapon states to seek the elimination of nuclear weapons and to begin moving to that goal by seeking a number of important arms control and disarmament measures.

While hawks in the US do not wish to take this initiative seriously it has very broad support among experts in security and foreign affairs. Non-governmental organizations, international disarmament groups such as ours and the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission that I headed (report in www.wmdcommission.org) and think tanks also strongly advocate this proposal from inside the US . Campaigning should accelerate in 2009.

The accelerating interdependence of states – including the big powers – lead them to cooperate to preserve the environment, to prevent the spread of diseases, to maintain and restore financial and economic equilibrium, to prevent terrorism and proliferation. The Cold War is over. There are no substantive controversies of significance. No reasons to further delay building an international society based on cooperative security.

Mr. Obama is on record specifically to support that the US Senate should review the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and ratify this agreement that it rejected over ten years ago. No other measure could send a stronger signal that the disarmament process has restarted.

I shall not review the many other measures that my Commission, the American elder statesmen and many others have recommended. One that interestingly had the support of Mr. McCain was the withdrawal of NATO nuclear weapons from Europe . They are left-overs from the Cold War. If matched by a Russian withdrawal of tactical nuclear weapons further into Russia the separate measurers would contribute to restore détente.

A measure of considerable importance that I have mentioned would be the negotiation of a verified agreement to stop the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons -- enriched uranium and plutonium (FMCT). Such an agreement has been on the drafting board – but not the negotiation table – for very long. It would close the tap for more nuclear weapons material. Together with reductions in existing warheads and stocks of nuclear material it would gradually reduce the world’s supply of nuclear explosives.

A relatively simple measure that would allow us to sleep better would be an agreement to take nuclear war heads off what is called ‘hair trigger alert’. It would reduce the risk of releases by accident or misunderstandings. With many thousands of nuclear weapons – by far most of the in the US and Russia – there would be some comfort to know that they are not ready for immediate firing.

Arrangements will further need to be reached not only to strengthen IAEA safeguards through a general adoption of the so called Additional Protocol but also to strengthen the controls of the use, transport and trade in radioactive materials. We must reduce the risk that such material may come to be used in ‘dirty bombs’, i.e. bombs that do not explode but spread their material and cause contamination and panic.

Lastly I must mention that in a world that will have many more nuclear power reactors than the some 450 that we now have the incentive to build plants for production of nuclear fuel also needs to be reduced. A plant built to enrich uranium to fuel grade – less than 5 % -- is also capable of enriching to the grade needed for weapons. It will not be possible to establish an international licensing system for such plants. However, incentives can be created for states with few power reactors to forego fuel cycle installations of their own. There is a good starting point: it is not economic to build enrichment plants for small nuclear power programs.

Tony Blair To The Hague For Trial - Do You Agree?

Tony Blair is out of office and Britain is a proud signatory nation to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
Blair invaded Iraq without authorization from the United Nations Security Council and he lied to Britain about Iraq's non existent threat to Britain and Iraq's non existent weapons of mass destruction.



As a consequence, Blair can be charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the deaths of all British soldiers who got killed in his war against Iraq on false pretenses, his BIG LIES.

Blair took Britain into an illegal war of aggression, the supreme crime against humanity as defined at the Nuremberg trials, United States Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson presiding.


Blair can be charged with one or more of four charges: conspiracy to commit crimes alleged in other counts; crimes against peace; war crimes; or crimes against humanity.

He should be sent to the Hague for trial.

Reported here.